7 ms·

Consider not anthropomorphizing software. How about we stop calling things without agency agents? Code generators are useful software. Perhaps we should unbu

by xn 7mo ago

Consider not anthropomorphizing software. How about we stop calling things without agency agents? Code generators are useful software. Perhaps we should unbundle them from prose generators.

co_king_3 7mo ago
> How about we stop calling things without agency agents? > Code generators are useful software. How about we stop baking praise for the object of criticism into our critique. No one is hearing your criticism. They hear "Code generators are useful software" and go on with their day. If you want to make your point effectively, stop kowtowing to our AI overlords.
- xn 7mo ago
  If you don't think code generators are useful, that's fine. I think code generators are useful, but that one of the trade-offs of using them is that it encourages people to anthropomorphize the software because they are also prose generators. I'm arguing that these two functions don't necessarily need to be bundled.
thephyber 7mo ago
You’re too late. “Agent” already has a new definition in the dictionary, specifically for software. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agent https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agent And it’s not like all of the other definitions were restricted to “human agency”.
- xn 7mo ago
  Your agency lets you choose the words you use.
  - thephyber 7mo ago
    What evidence is there that humans have any more agency than Markov Chain bots with lots more inputs?
duckmysick 7mo ago
We already have a "user agent" as a term for software (browsers, curl, etc.) that fetches web content on behalf of a user. It predates current AI agents by a few decades. I don't think it has much agency either, but here we are (were?). As for anthropomorphizing software - we've been doing it for a long time. We have software that reads and writes data. Originally those were things that only humans did. But over time these words gained another meaning.

by xn 7mo ago

Consider not anthropomorphizing software. How about we stop calling things without agency agents? Code generators are useful software. Perhaps we should unbundle them from prose generators.

co_king_3 7mo ago

> How about we stop calling things without agency agents? > Code generators are useful software. How about we stop baking praise for the object of criticism into our critique. No one is hearing your criticism. They hear "Code generators are useful software" and go on with their day. If you want to make your point effectively, stop kowtowing to our AI overlords.

xn 7mo ago
If you don't think code generators are useful, that's fine. I think code generators are useful, but that one of the trade-offs of using them is that it encourages people to anthropomorphize the software because they are also prose generators. I'm arguing that these two functions don't necessarily need to be bundled.

thephyber 7mo ago

You’re too late. “Agent” already has a new definition in the dictionary, specifically for software. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agent https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agent And it’s not like all of the other definitions were restricted to “human agency”.

xn 7mo ago
Your agency lets you choose the words you use.
- thephyber 7mo ago
  What evidence is there that humans have any more agency than Markov Chain bots with lots more inputs?

duckmysick 7mo ago

We already have a "user agent" as a term for software (browsers, curl, etc.) that fetches web content on behalf of a user. It predates current AI agents by a few decades. I don't think it has much agency either, but here we are (were?). As for anthropomorphizing software - we've been doing it for a long time. We have software that reads and writes data. Originally those were things that only humans did. But over time these words gained another meaning.